Why do we keep bending over backwards for Amazon?

In the midst of a Willy Wonka-like search for Amazon’s next headquarters — aka HQ2 — new data suggests the nation’s largest e-commerce grocer employs a disproportionate amount of workers on food stamps.

According to New Food Economy, one in three Arizona Amazon employees depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with the company ranking in the top 20 in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Washington.

This comes in the wake of news that Amazon will soon begin taking grocery orders from customers on the program. It’s a move that would seemingly create a double subsidy loop.

“The political thrust to the article is: Why are we bending over backwards to help Amazon basically take over the entire economy?” said KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney.

CEO Jeff Bezos is promising to create more than 50,000 jobs in the next headquarter city. What those jobs are, and how they’ll impact the community, is of chief concern. New Food Economy argues that “Though taxpayers have generously subsidized the build-out of Amazon’s warehouses, it’s not clear that the company has held up its end of the bargain.”

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Whether its tax breaks, subsidies, infrastructure improvements, or the new acceptance of SNAP dollars, the American people appear to be funding the conglomerate at every step.

“It’s no secret that Amazon has a highly segregated workforce,” said Danny O’Neil of 710 ESPN Seattle, on the Tom and Curley Show. “The people who work in the warehouses have a dramatically different earning structure and income level than the white collar workers. It’s very class-divided.”

Last year, Amazon notched an estimated 44 percent of all U.S. e-commerce sales. That number is expected to rise in 2018. The retailer employs over 500,000 workers worldwide, including over 200,000 in the United States.

Amazon responds to criticism of warehouse wages

Company representatives noted — in response — that employees receive regular performance bonuses, and that benefits for full-time warehouse employees are competitive with other companies. A 2013 report by CNN found that the average warehouse worker at Amazon makes $24,300 a year, in contrast to $40,000 at Walmart. Walmart is the biggest recipient of SNAP participants in the above-mentioned states.

In January, Amazon announced 20 finalists for its headquarters search, including Austin, Denver, Boston and Los Angeles, among others. But the new data has critics wondering whether winning the billion dollar infrastructure Star Search is a good thing.

“You’re subsidizing a business that in turn doesn’t pay some of its workers enough,” O’Neil said. “They’re getting government subsidies at every turn. Both in the assistance of workers wages, income they’re able to use as part of their grocery stores, and in the development and growth of fulfillment centers and headquarters. That’s too much.”

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